It is common in the oil & gas industry for casing and tubing hangers to depend upon the installation of threaded connections, such as lockdown screws and/or threaded locking rings.
However, these connections often require painstaking manual intervention, and the use of threaded connections limits the stability. For instance, threaded connections often require rotation of the packoff assembly, which introduces a chance for wellhead seals to be damaged. Additionally, these threaded parts must be replaced often due to wear and tear, which can raise the cost of wellhead operations.
A need exists for a simplified system that can lock a casing or tubing hanger off a wellhead without the use of threaded lockdown screws, while minimizing rotation of lock rings, and still providing the needed stability and ease of maintenance.
Embodiments of the apparatus described herein meet this and other needs.
One or more embodiments are described below with reference to the listed Figures.